


the eternal flame

by VickyVicarious



Series: OUATLA [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: "That's rough buddy", Alternate Universe - Avatar Fusion, Avatar Emma, F/M, Firebender Killian Jones, Friendship, Gen, NWT Warrior Charming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5686360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VickyVicarious/pseuds/VickyVicarious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killian and David go on a life-saving field trip.</p><blockquote>
  <p>“I had a brother too you know: a twin. He died before I ever met him.”</p>
  <p>Killian sighs. “That’s rough, mate.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	the eternal flame

**Author's Note:**

> Some background info has changed - primarily the timeline of the previous installment. It now happened during the beginning of the war; Milah was a young airbender away from the temples when the attack came. Killian survived all this time because he found a portal to the Spirit World, and if your physical body is there then you do not age. Rumple meanwhile has lived a long time because benders do that okay, and also he spent twenty-eight years frozen in ice along with the rest of the NWT, before Emma saved them along with Henry and Killian.
> 
> Graham is mentioned in this fic: he was a Dai Lee agent, and taught Emma earthbending before he died opposing Fire Lady Regina.
> 
> This is set after what would be the majority of the ‘seasons’. Emma has already mastered all the elements, and she and a small group are sneaking into the Fire Nation to directly confront Regina, and convince her to put a peaceful end to this war - and if she refuses, stop her permanently.

“What would you like to yell at me about now, Dave?” Killian asks sarcastically. The prince in front of him is tromping along through the bushes loudly enough to scare off any animal within a mile; if his excuse of ‘going hunting’ wasn’t already an obvious lie, that would give it away.

“Stay away from my daughter,” is the demand - predictable, really. It’s no surprise at all, in fact Killian expected more blatant hatred far sooner than this. Expected to be thrown into an icy prison, if not a watery grave, as soon as his nationality was revealed - the fact that they accepted him as their daughter’s companion, however begrudgingly, is on its own incredible.

Somehow, the disgust in David’s voice still stings.

“Well, she can take of herself, she doesn’t need your parenting,” Killian mutters, and takes a swig of spiced rum from his flask. It’s hot down his throat, for the first time in quite a while: perks of being in the Fire Nation again. “Which is a good thing.”

“What does that mean?” David demands, and no amount of rum could take the edge off the anger that rushes through Killian at that.

“It’s means you’re gonna die in a day or so anyway,” he spits out, and it’s - of course his mind is going here, a spirit poison and a man too stubborn to listen to reason, but - the comparison _hurts_ , and he doesn’t want to linger on it.

Just wants to make the idiot understand this time around, make sure it ends better than before.

“Well, nothing I can do about that, but if I do die,” the prince spins around to face Killian, hand obvious on the hilt of his sword.

“ _When_ ,” Killian snaps.

“-It’ll be in helping my family,” the so-called charming prince of the Northern Water Tribe says. “In helping restore the _balance of the world_ , and that’s something someone like you can’t understand.”

He turns and resumes stomping away, still far too loud to get any actual hunting accomplished.

Killian takes a deep breath, tries to think like - like stone. Like Graham, before he had crumbled, when he was still strong and any insult shattered before it reached his skin… but steadily, calm, focused - he didn’t lash out, he’d -

Been cracked, long before they’d ever met him and far deeper than they knew, and they hadn’t been able to save him, he’d become another person Emma loved and lost, another friend Killian failed.

He isn’t going to let David die.

“What if I told you there’s a way to save you?” he asks, voice low.

“I’d say no!” David snaps. “Because anything that takes us off course of ending this war is _selfish_. But, of course you would think that was the way to go.”

Heat flashes through Killian and nearly sparks out through his fingertips. _Like stone_ , he thinks but it isn’t working, _like air_  but that’s even more impossible, he can’t hide from this.

“Bugger off, what, you think I’m being selfish? I’m risking my _life_  for all of you, every moment I’m here. I’ve _been_ risking myself for longer than you’ve been around, who do you think taught your daughter to firebend?” and he’s dimly aware that he’s yelling, he can taste the fire on his tongue -

“You’re not here out of any nobility, you’re here for Emma!” the prince shouts right back.

And Killian _hates_  David in that moment because… he isn’t completely wrong. The man he’d become after the genocide, after Rumplestiltskin, the man who had lived a hundred years in the darkest corners of the Spirit World - that man would have easily let the world burn so long as a certain serpent burned with it.

He _is_  here for Emma. Not because she is the Avatar, but because she’s Emma Swan: a vicious, stubborn, childish, lost girl with too many heartbreaks to count - and the kindest, strongest, most honorable person he’s ever known. She might give the world hope with the power at her disposal, but she gives  _Killian_ hope every time she smiles. When she kissed him, for the first time in that tunnel - he’d long since known he was done for, pledged to her cause and by her side as long as would accept him there. She makes him want to be better - to reclaim the honor he lost so long ago, to be a hero.

David is right, at least a little. But at the same time he’s completely and utterly _wrong_ , and his refusal to listen sparks and spits inside Killian like an angry flame.

It makes him want all the more to save this man.

* * *

The trip up the ridge is long. The night is dark, so they rely on the small flame in Killian’s hand for illumination; still, he doesn’t dare to make it too large, and they can’t see much. The air is hot and muggy, the pained wheezing of the prince unsettling.

His attempts at conversation, awkward.

“You lost someone, didn’t you?” he asks, and ignores Killian ignoring him to continue: “It was your brother, right? I had a brother too you know: a twin. He died before I ever met him.”

Killian sighs. “That’s rough, mate.”

David laughs. It’s scornful, not at all appreciative of the, granted, insincere attempt at comfort. “Eh, you would’ve liked him better than me. He was a thief and a liar.”

“Yeah? You would’ve liked my brother,” Killian grits out: “he could be a _stubborn ass_.”

Luckily, they’re nearly upon the temple. He lets his flame go out and tells the prince to be silent before the retort comes.

Tries to focus on the task at hand. Tries not to think of the other reasons Emma’s father would have liked Liam, the other ways those honorable idiots are so similar.

(Fails, and promises himself again: he won’t let this one die.)

* * *

Living in the Spirit World for a hundred years, one learns things. Sometimes, from spirits, or lost souls - sometimes, the knowledge appears to simply seep in, as though the barrier to limitless enlightenment is simply another physical state, best left behind.

It’s all an illusion, of course. Even in the Spirit World, there is always a price to pay. Perhaps especially there - if one does not hold on tight to their sense of self, it tends to slip away, forever lost… and with it, the way home. Killian did his best not to give in, and for the most part he succeeded.

Some things, though, he is glad to have learned: the dreamshade plant only grows in the Spirit World. How Rumplestiltskin managed to retrieve it for the Fire Nation is a mystery, after Killian destroyed the last working portal to the Spirit Realm a hundred years ago. _Why_  the bloodbender now appears to be working with his most hated enemies is just as much a mystery - but less relevant than the poison spread on the Yu Yan archers’ arrows, now spreading rapidly toward David’s heart.

As a spiritual poison, dreamshade can only be healed with a spiritual remedy. Pan had tricked Killian, back then - he’d been desperate to believe anything that would save his brother, so he didn’t question the spirit’s evasive answers, didn’t have the slightest clue that a _purely_  spiritual remedy would not work in the mortal world. He was no shaman, merely a sailor - how could he have known?

He should have, though. He should have _realized_ , when Pan spoke of prices to be paid, and smiled with hunger in his eyes, and - he should have _known_ , but he didn’t understand, not until Liam was collapsing in his arms, and back then he’d never been to the Sun Warrior’s city, didn’t know about the spirit water in the Norther Water Tribe, and all that had been leagues away in any case, and Liam was just _gone_ , far too quickly, and -

(When he returned to the Spirit World, years later, he’d looked for his brother. But Liam was nowhere to be found, no more than Milah, and Pan still had that hungry gleam in his eyes.)

This time, they’re lucky. So incredibly lucky, that the Sun Warrior city is only a few hours’ trek away, and the stubborn prince gullible enough to fall for his talk of an ancient weapon hidden inside. Lucky, too, that Killian and Emma have been here before, that he knows the ancient secret this place holds, the ancient creatures far more valuable than any weapon - and the warriors that guard them.

He isn’t here for dragons, though: just their gift.

It’s not easy, but Killian Jones makes it out with a piece of the Eternal Flame, and as he kneels before the stupid, stubborn, honorable _imbecile_  before him, he sends up a rare prayer to Agni, a wordless plea for this to work. 

“You want me to let you _burn_  me,” the warrior snarls, defensive, and if he could bend Killian is sure he’d be full of icicles, but the poison has spread too far and David can’t even sit up, let alone draw his sword.

“I want you to let me save your life! This is a piece of the Eternal Fire, it can stop the dreamshade.”

David stares at him. It seems he's finally realizing. “You knew I wouldn’t come on my own, that I wouldn’t leave my family.”

“That you were stubborn, yes, I gathered that quickly,” Killian says.

The prince _smiles_ , and it may have even been a laugh that prompts the next round of coughs. “Well?” he says, and lets his hands fall to his sides, leaving himself defenseless. “Give it to me.”

It’s what Killian wanted, it’s - what he has told himself not to expect, knows he doesn’t deserve, but it’s what Emma gives him, what Henry gives him, this astonishing level of trust. It’s incredible that they could ever believe in someone like him, and for all that he _wants_  it, he still finds it hard to believe. Even from them. From David - fierce, Water Tribe warrior David, stubborn fool David, Emma’s father who reminds Killian so viscerally of Liam sometimes that it _sizzles…_ to have this man trusting his life in Killian’s hand is even more humbling, somehow.

He wants to be worth this.

He presses the fire into David’s chest. It doesn’t burn him, but seems to slip into his skin, to settle in and Killian can still sense it, that - flickering little heartbeat, something simply physical and yet simultaneously far more. It doesn’t do anything for a second - but then David gasps, and the black poison is - _burning_  out of him, lifting from his skin like smoke and fading into nothing in the air. It takes less than a minute: the deadly spirit poison is simply gone.

David starts to laugh.

A moment later, and Killian follows suit.

* * *

“He saved my life,” David says, almost warmly.

“Are you sure you want to tell them that, mate?” Killian asks, but David’s voice is firm, his gaze certain. He spins his tale, of no weapon but a series of deadly traps, in which he certainly would have died if not for Killian’s bravery…

Snow is listening with wide eyes. Ruby has an amused smile. Henry appears to be lapping it up, while Mulan eyes Killian in a way that is somehow reproachful and reevaluating at once.

And Emma - she’s looking directly at Killian, her gaze soft and warm in the way that sets sparks flaring to life in his stomach, makes him want to blush and look away. She is looking at Killian like he is _worth_  something, worth all this praise and more, and he shifts uncomfortably on the balls of his feet as David demands he turn over his flask.

“I thought you deserved a little credit,” the prince tells him.

Thank you,” Killian says. His voice sounds a little rough. He feels rougher.

David nods, before taking a swig from the flask. He promptly chokes and coughs - probably didn’t expect the strong spices - but there’s still a _smile_ on his face as he turns to pass it around to everyone but Henry.

Emma slips into the space at Killian’s side when she’s finished her swig, and reaches down to link their hands together.

“Would you look at that,” she says, and his stomach flips, he swallows hard and blinks harder, because her voice is low, teasing and sweet: “Another mark in the hero column.”

Killian turns to her, and finds there is nothing he can say. His throat is tight, his thoughts spinning helplessly between Liam and David, the way the Eternal Flame felt in his palm and the quiet sort of confidence in Emma’s eyes now.

It’s belief. It’s trust. It’s - something he doesn’t quite dare to name yet, not on her end, though he’s long since fallen in.

He swallows, but it doesn’t help; he’s still speechless. So instead, Killian leans in and Emma leans up to meet him halfway, and they’re kissing, slow and soft, and this, this is it.

This is his reason.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still going crazy about (all iterations of) [ouatla](http://vickyvicarious.tumblr.com/tagged/ouatla) on my tumblr, and I'm not the only one. Join us in the fun!
> 
> As before, my primary co-conspirator was [cynmoon](http://cynmoon.tumblr.com/), definitely check her out. Also, props to CaliforniaArchivist, who made the comment about Sokka!Charming which inspired this installment.


End file.
